by Texas Rain
She glanced up into a face that looked almost too old to have a toddler.
The woman winked. “Don’t worry; I thought you were a boy until I saw how you touched the fabric. Boys don’t feel cloth the way women do.” She laughed, enjoying talking to someone. “My ma used to say that I was a watcher in a world full of the blind. I seem to always see things that are right there for the seeing, but no one else notices.”
Rainey didn’t know what to say. Though she’d tried not to get close to anyone, she’d been careful when she’d had to, knowing her safety depended on her being able to play a part, and now she’d shown herself up so easily. A mother wrestling a baby hadn’t been fooled.
“I’m Pearl Langland,” the owner said. “My husband is delivering supplies to a farm halfway to San Antonio today. He won’t be back until late. If you like, you could wash up in our room in the back. There’s even a hip tub if you want to haul water from the well for a bath. I don’t mind at all, dear. It’ll be nice to have the company.”
“Thank you.” Rainey couldn’t believe the woman’s kindness. “I’d be eternally grateful.”
“You’re from up north, I’m guessing.” Pearl led her to the back room. Their quarters couldn’t have been more than ten feet wide and maybe fifteen feet long, but in one room the Langlands had made a home.
Rainey frowned again. She’d worked on erasing any hint of her accent. The lack of food lately must be making her mind turn to mush.
When Pearl glanced back, she laughed a deep laugh that filled the small room. “I told you I was good at guessing. It’s a game I’ve played all my life. Most folks listen for clues, but I watch. It’s the little things that give secrets away. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve guessed about some of the people in this town. I swear they wear their lies like ribbons on their chests for anyone who has a mind to look.”
“What gave me away?” Rainey asked, feeling safer with this woman than she had since she’d boarded the train just outside of Washington.
Pearl shrugged as if her talent were nothing. “It was the way you counted out the money. Most men, even boys, just hand you a handful and don’t bother to count out the amount to the penny. Women usually are more accurate.”
Rainey wanted to hear more, but Pearl pulled the tub from the wall behind the back door and suddenly Rainey had other priorities. The mercantile owner also produced a clean bath sheet and tiny samples of soap that peddlers must have left at the store.
“Take your time.” Pearl picked up her toddler and moved back toward the store. “I’ll be out front if you need anything. I’ll stand guard and no one will bother you, I promise.”
For a moment Rainey couldn’t believe Pearl had left her alone in her home, trusting that she wouldn’t steal something. Then Rainey looked around. There was nothing worth the taking—a few old clothes on pegs. Several bowls of peaches on the table. A toy horse with a broken leg.
She relaxed, glad that she’d given Pearl her business and thankful to have a priceless bit of privacy. Rainey followed the woman’s advice and did take her time. While the water heated, she laid out her new belongings as if they were priceless and on display. She soaked until the water became cold and scrubbed her hair twice. Then she climbed out, dried off, and put on her new under things. The soft cotton felt wonderful against her skin. It had been weeks since she’d felt truly clean.
Wearing only her undergarments, she washed her old clothes in the bathwater and scrubbed them as best she could. She left them in a bucket while she scrubbed the rags piled in one corner that Pearl must use for the baby. They were smelly and stained. Finally, she cleaned up her mess and slipped into the first new dress she’d worn in years.
After hanging the clothes to dry on the back porch railing, Rainey smiled up into the sun, feeling better than she had in months. Her short hair dried naturally into curls, and for once she couldn’t feel fleas.
Pearl tapped on the door just as Rainey pulled her new comb through her hair.
“Mind if I interrupt? Jason’s hungry.”
“No. Please come in. I’m all dressed.” Rainey turned as Pearl walked in and caught the surprise in the older woman’s glance.
“My, my. I knew you were a woman, but I never dreamed there was such a pretty one beneath all that dirt.”
Rainey blushed. “Thank you kindly, but I’ve never been anything but plain. I came to terms with it years ago.” She did feel pretty, though, in a dress that had never belonged to anyone else.
She remembered when she’d been little and attended the school her father ran. As the schoolmaster’s daughter, she never had fine dresses like all her classmates. Her father thought brown or black would be proper for his daughter. Even if she had talked her parents into allowing her to have a new dress for parties, Rainey was smart enough to realize that she’d still be the last one asked to dance. No young man had ever called on her. Not even one. When she’d moved from student to teacher, it had been a blessing, for she felt like she no longer had to compete with the others. Her dresses became plainer, dulling into grays, until she sometimes felt as though she’d faded into the very walls of the school.
“I like that rose color.” Pearl tugged Rainey back from the past.
“Me, too,” she said, thinking that as soon as she got a job, she’d buy the green one she’d seen in the store. She swore she’d never wear gray again.
Pearl pulled a meat pie from the cool box. “And you are pretty in it,” she said. “But I warn you that a girl thinking herself plain can sometimes make it so.” She winked at Rainey. “So take my compliment. Carry it in that imaginary pocket in your mind. Pull it out now and then and remember that at least one person noticed how pretty you are. Couldn’t hurt.”
Laughing, Rainey promised. She didn’t know if she’d be able to think herself pretty, but she could see kindness in this tall woman and she would remember that.
Rainey must have been staring at the pie, for Pearl added, “I’d be honored to have you join me for lunch.”
Rainey shook her head without taking her gaze off the pie. “I couldn’t. You’ve been so kind already.”
“Of course you can, dear. I hate eating alone, and the pie will be spoiled soon if we don’t have it all. While we eat you can tell me how you happened to end up in these parts. I’ve no one but boring men to talk to most of the time, so it will be nice to have a visit.”
Rainey began talking as she helped clear the peaches from the table. Pearl sat down with the baby in her lap and listened. By the time they’d finished the pie, Rainey had told Pearl all about her travels. Even including her short life as a horse borrower. It felt grand to tell the truth to someone. As she ended her tale, Rainey smiled, thinking that for the first time she had something to talk about besides what she’d read in books. She had lived an adventure.
Pearl leaned forward and covered Rainey’s hand with hers. “You had good reason to leave home,” she said. “Don’t ever look back. It may have been the first time you chose a path for yourself, but you done right. You’ll be safe here in Austin, I can feel it.”
Staring at Pearl’s hand, Rainey understood. She hadn’t said much about her father, only that he tried to make her marry a man she didn’t know, but Pearl had picked up on how it had been for her.
They spent the afternoon talking. Rainey held the baby while Pearl waited on customers and helped her stock while little Jason slept. Rainey insisted on making a peach pie to pay Pearl back in a small way for having eaten half her lunch. The smell of baking peaches filled the kitchen and drifted into the store. Pearl swore she sold three bags of peaches that afternoon because of the smell customers enjoyed while in the store.
“I wish we had the money to hire you,” Pearl said as Rainey organized the spices. “The place looks better today than it has since the baby came. I don’t seem to be able to do as much out here with him holding on to my skirts, but my Owen never complains.” She laughed. “In fact, he told me yesterday that he wouldn’t mind if our li
ttle Jason had a brother or sister.” She blushed.
“I’ll find something.” Rainey tried to sound hopeful. “But first I’d better be off to find a place to board for the night. In this dress I could never go down to the creek to sleep tonight.”
She’d just walked through the door when she noticed a tired man climb from his wagon and walk toward the store. He was stout, and balding, with a mustache that seemed to run from ear to ear. “Pearl!” he yelled as he neared the door. “Are you in there, or did you finally get an ounce of wisdom and leave me?”
Rainey heard Pearl’s laughter. She rushed into his arms a moment later, and they hugged wildly, as if it had been days not hours since they’d seen each other. Rainey smiled as she walked away. She’d made a friend today. And to know her new friend was loved made Rainey feel good, even hopeful.
The good hotels all had Full signs swinging above their doors. A few places said they took men travelers only. She’d asked a man at one of the hotel desks, who looked like he might have been in Austin a while, if he knew of a place where respectable young women boarded. He said there was one fine women’s boardinghouse and one not so grand on opposite ends of a street called Congress Avenue. One stranger asked if she might be the new schoolmarm, and Rainey realized she looked exactly like what she’d always been, an old maid schoolteacher. She’d been thirteen when students first called her Miss Adams, and she felt she’d aged a decade for each of the eight years she taught.
She didn’t want to go back to teaching, but at present it seemed her best option. Jobs for women were few in this part of the world, and respectable jobs were almost nonexistent. She walked the busy streets reading posted notices in windows. A cook needed at one place, but offering less money than a boardinghouse would charge each week. Several notices were posted for house servants, promising room and board and a half-day off each week, but little pay. She found two ads for clerks, but one business wanted a man, and the other position had been filled before Rainey could find the address.
By dusk she decided to drop her bag off at the less expensive boardinghouse and make sure she had a bed for the night.
When she first saw the rooming house, she thought it looked respectable enough, only it was gray, the one color Rainey decided she hated. The old woman who ran the Askew House said she only had one room, a small third-floor space with a tiny window overlooking the alley.
“I’ll take it,” Rainey said and followed the rail of a woman up the carpeted stairs.
“I’m Mrs. Vivian. My husband and I came here with Mr. Stephen F.,” the owner said.
“Stephen F.,” Rainey repeated as she followed.
Mrs. Vivian stopped and turned around. “Stephen F. Austin.” She raised her chin. “We were part of the original three hundred.”
Rainey wasn’t about to repeat anything else. Whatever Mrs. Vivian thought she was because she and her husband arrived first seemed to be very important. “Yes, ma’am,” Rainey whispered.
“I run a respectable house.” The landlord continued up the steps.
“I understand,” Rainey said without having a clear idea what the woman meant but guessed if she asked for a list of what wasn’t respectable, horse borrowing would probably be on it. So she followed up to the second flight of stairs.
When Mrs. Vivian learned Rainey was looking for work, she insisted on collecting the entire first week’s rent in advance. It was twice what Rainey hoped it would be.
“Don’t know if you’ll find work.” The old woman pulled her mouth into a bow of wrinkles. “Most places don’t pay women enough to live on.” She raised one rather bushy eyebrow. “I guess they figure any proper woman would find a husband to provide for her.” The landlord looked her up and down. “You’re not very big, but you should have no problem finding a man to marry you if that’s what you came to Texas looking for.”
“No.” The last thing Rainey wanted was Mrs. Vivian trying to match her up with a man. “I came to work and make my own way.”
The old woman raised her nose. “It’s not easy. Leastwise if you plan to make an honest living, and I don’t rent rooms to those of them that don’t.”
Rainey touched the top button of her blouse, making sure she looked totally respectable. “My parents died of fever on the boat from New Orleans,” she lied. “We’d planned to start a girls’ school in this area.” It was the only thing she knew, she realized, and she’d never be able to start a school without a great deal of money.
Mrs. Vivian shook her head. “I wish you luck, but staying alive seems more important than reading and writing in this part of the world.” She appeared to have lost interest in the conversation. “The room comes with supper at seven each night and breakfast the next morning also at seven. If you miss either serving, I don’t keep a plate warm for you, and I don’t refund any part of your board.” She handed Rainey a key, pointed to the door, then headed back down the stairs mumbling rules she’d memorized years ago. “Male visitors are not allowed past the parlor, and there are no exceptions or refunds if I ask you to leave for breaking that rule. You’ll use the bathroom on the second floor, but you’ll have to carry your own water up from the pump in the kitchen. If you ask Mamie, my slave, to tote or wash clothes for you, I expect you to pay me a quarter a bundle. The first outhouse in back is for my ladies, but after dark I recommend you use the chamber pot. My house backs up to Saloon Row. I won’t be responsible for your safety after dark.”
“I can take care of myself,” Rainey said.
The landlord glanced back over her shoulder. “I hope you carry a loaded pistol with you, ’cause someone your size wouldn’t have a chance against a man.”
Rainey nodded, not wanting to admit she carried nothing for protection.
Mrs. Vivian left without another word. Rainey unlocked the only door on the third floor and looked around her new home. The room reminded her of a cabin on a ship. It could not have been a smaller space and been called a room. But on the bright side, it was clean. She leaned across the bed and opened the window. If she looked up, she could see the sky, but if she looked down, she not only could see but smell the filth of the alley below. Heaven and Hell. She had her own little slice of each.
While unpacking her few belongings, she listened to bits of conversation drift up from below her window. Two women on the porch behind the saloon were complaining about their late night as they smoked thin cigars. Parts of a song reached her window from the kitchen below, and one man, already drunk for the evening, talked to himself as he found his way to the privy.
Rainey looked out and decided the buildings along the alley must act as a chimney, for sound carried everything said, even softly, to her window. She smiled, remembering a place in the great hall of the school. One spot in the entire room where a person could stand and hear everything said within those walls. She used to love standing in that spot and feeling a part of all around her.
She almost laughed. This window could work to her advantage. If she listened closely, she might be able to pick up the accents that seemed to have blended into a way of talking that sounded slightly different from any dialect she’d ever heard. Then, alone in her room, she could practice until she sounded like a Texan. She’d be safest if she blended in here.
A few minutes later, when she walked into the dining room at exactly seven o’clock, Rainey found the other seven residents of the house.
A stout woman named Margaret Ann Mathis stood and introduced everyone.
One mother and her grown daughter from Germany spoke little English. Margaret Ann explained that they were waiting for the woman’s husband to finish with the fall crop so he would have time to come and get them.
Three sisters had been in Austin two months waiting for their supplies to arrive so that they could open a dress shop. Though they smiled at Rainey, they were boredom in triplicate with dull eyes and hair in different stages of graying.
The last woman was in her late thirties and introduced herself as Mrs. Dottie Davis. She w
ore widow’s black and nibbled at her food while the others were being introduced.
As soon as Margaret Ann finished her duty of introducing everyone, she sat down and, like the others, began eating. Rainey followed suit, noticing the food, though simple, was well prepared. Compared to the meals on the train and the ship, this looked like a feast.
After a few minutes Widow Davis broke the silence by asking if Rainey knew the history of the Askew House.
“No,” Rainey answered. This entire town seemed far too new to have much history.
“Then I must tell you,” the widow whispered.
“Not the murder of Lora again,” Margaret Ann protested. “How can you keep telling that story when we don’t know what really happened?”
Widow Davis pouted. “Lora was too young to be traveling alone, if you ask me. That was her first mistake”—she raised one eyebrow and stared at Rainey—“and maybe her last.”
The closest of the three sisters agreed, then poked Rainey and added, “About your age. We heard the story from a woman who lived here the night it happened. Miss Lora was young with doe eyes and hair so blond it looked almost silver.”
Widow Davis interrupted. “She came to marry a Frenchman back in forty-nine just before half the men in America went crazy over the gold rush. Poor child barely spoke English and didn’t know enough to come in out of the rain. They say the man she was to have married still paces in front of the Askew House some nights as if hoping for an answer to exactly what happened to his bride even though it’s been years.”
Mrs. Vivian was busy serving dinner to her guests and showed no interest in the story. Maybe she’d heard it one too many times.
The widow talked on while she chewed. “A few of us remember like it was yesterday and not five years ago. Mrs. Vivian had just started the place and my Henry was still alive. We had a restaurant down a few blocks.” The chubby woman lowered her voice as the landlord left the room. “Seems like I remember Mrs. Vivian’s husband and only son went missing down near Galveston a few months before. She had to make a living somehow, so she opened the house to women only.”
